Charles L. Hoskins has compiled a detailed catalog of Savannah history like none other — it’s packed with information about African-Americans.

After moving to Savannah to become rector of St. Matthews Episcopal Church in 1975, Hoskins discovered that his historic new home offered very little documented history about Africans and African-Americans.

“I wanted to know about blacks in Savannah but the information was limited,” Hoskins said. “I heard a lot of stories but none of the information was all in one place.”

So he searched newspaper microfilm archives and found references in the Savannah Morning News, as well as articles and photographs in black newspapers like The Savannah Tribune, The Savannah Herald, The Chicago Defender and The Pittsburgh Courier. He scoured Georgia Historical Society and Bull Street Library shelves for books, journals and any other document containing historical tidbits about local African-Americans.

Twenty-five years later Hoskins’ study was filled, floor to ceiling, with the historical records he discovered and he had become a leading expert in local black history. He has compiled everything he learned in a catalog detailing what has happened year to year in Savannah’s black community — from the enslaved Africans who accompanied Oglethorpe’s surveyors to layout the city plan, to Savannah civil rights activist W.W. Law, who worked tirelessly to preserve local black history until he died in 2002. The book is called “W.W. Law and His People: A Timeline and Biographies.” It will be available this month at Diaspora Marketplace, The Book Lady Bookstore, E. Shaver, Bookseller and the Beach Institute.

“I tried to present the black experience as those who lived it saw it,” Hoskins said.

The book revives long forgotten stories of unique characters like Daddy Grace who led brass bands to draw Black Savannahians to the United House of Prayer for All People in the 1920s. It also recounts unusual events like the time Savannah Tribune Editor J.H. Butler was arrested and charged with deporting labor. In 1916 Butler had contacted some local black youths about summer job opportunities in Connecticut, but thousands showed up to take the northbound train.

“Blacks were here from day one,” Hoskins said. “It is all in the overlooked pages of Savannah history.”